Hikaru Nakamura wins the 2017 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Masters

The USA’s Hikaru Nakamura, was the winner of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Masters for a third consecutive year. He defeated Grandmaster David Antón Guijarro of Spain after a tense two-game speed playoff. Ju Wenjun won the Women’s prize and takes home £15,000.
But there was controversy surrounding the women’s competition, which was won by Ju Wenjun who took home £15,000 after Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan from China gave away her game against Lalith Babu M R from India in the last round within five moves.
In an exclusive interview with the Festival press team Hou Yifan tells Tania Sachdev she apologised to chess players, to her fans and those following the Gibraltar Masters.
Hou Yifan said she had been dissatisfied and had been upset with the pairings throughout the tournament as she had drawn seven women players out of 10 rounds.
Tournament organiser, Brian Callaghan, interviewed directly after the Women’s World Champion, was disappointed at what had happened and felt she had let herself down. Being a World Champion he said brought with it a great responsibility.
Although sympathetic about her reason for giving her game away, Mr Callaghan was quite clear that he did not believe the pairings had been wrong or that the move by Hou Yifan had damaged the tournament. But he did refer to the world champion having had a “bad day at the office”.
Mr Callaghan insisted the festival had welcomed her several times to the Rock and the festival had always been a keen promoter of the women’s game in chess and that this would continue into the future.

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